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Four 2008 Olympians Lose Medals to Doping

August 31, 2016 1:00 PM

VOA News

Nadezhda Evstyukhina, of Russia, lifts 138 kilograms in the clean and jerk of the women's 75 kg of the weightlifting competition at the Beijing Olympics in Beijing, Aug. 15, 2008. Evstyukhina took the bronze medal, of which she was stripped on Wednesday.

The International Olympic Committee has disqualified six more athletes from the 2008 Beijing Games after a re-analysis of doping samples tested positive. Four of the six were awarded medals at those games.

The IOC said in a statement Wednesday that Russian weightlifters Nadezhda Evstyukhina and Marina Shainova, who won bronze and silver medals respectively, will be stripped of their medals. Sprinter Tatyana Firova, who won a silver medal in 2008, will lose her medal as well.

Also losing a bronze medal is Armenian weightlifter Tigran Martirosyan. His fellow weightlifters, Alexandru Dudoglo of Moldova and Intigam Zairov of Azerbaijan, have also been disqualified, the statement said.

After doping revelations, the IOC cleared only 271 Russian athletes to compete in the recent Rio Olympic Games, out of the national Olympic team of 387 members.

In late July, international federations in canoeing and the modern pentathlon sidelined seven Russians, including an Olympic gold medalist, following earlier rulings in swimming and rowing.

The largest group of Russian athletes barred from the Rio Olympics was in track and field, where 67 were barred when the Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld a ban on the Russian team.